Janet Daley was born in America where she began her political life on the Left as an undergraduate at Berkeley. She moved to Britain (and to the Right) in 1965 where she spent nearly twenty years in academic life before becoming a political commentator: all factors that inform her writing on British and American policy and politicians.

G8 Declaration on climate change: developing countries will not be bullied

A draft of the communique which is to be issued by the leaders of the major economies (the G8 plus the leading developing nations) has been published by the Guardian. It is clear, even through the diplomatic waffle, that the poorer countries have refused to be browbeaten.

They have not submitted to emission targets and limits on growth which would effectively have prevented them from ever achieving the levels of general prosperity and security to which the richer populations of the world have grown accustomed. Interspersed amidst all the vague statements accepting that climate change is "one of the greatest challenges of our time" and the intention "to respond vigorously to this challenge " are the crucial caveats. The responses "should respect the priority of economic and social development of developing countries": in other words, the disadvantaged of the world should not be expected to sacrifice the possibility of escaping from mass poverty, especially when they have been less responsible than the wealthy nations for whatever historical damage may have been done to the environment. Future cooperation, says the declaration, must be "consistent with equity". Measures must be "nationally appropriate", taking into account the differing starting points of the countries which will have to undertake these restrictions.

The most concrete example of this variation is in the "peaking point" of national emissions which, in the developing countries, will have to come later than in the developed ones. The poor must be allowed to catch up with the rich before their emissions can be expected to fall. One can imagine the diplomatic bargaining which would have gone in to this carefully wrought statement with its strategically inserted phrases referring to "national circumstances" and the need for the rich countries to offer support to the poorer ones if they are to expect cooperation over growth-inhibiting measures. For western leaders who profess to be as concerned about global poverty as they are about climate change, this should have been a salutary experience.